A central region weather enthusiast says it is unlikely that we will experience another extreme cold spell in the our area this winter.

Scott Kehler notes the jet stream has shifted north which has allowed warm Pacific air to flood across the prairies.

“Before, when we had cooler weather at the beginning of January, what was happening was the jet stream had sunk south and it was allowing a lot of cold arctic air to pour into southern Manitoba. Now that that pattern has changed, we are enjoying our air mass coming from the Pacific rather than from the arctic.”

Kehler says all indications point to this warmer weather pattern lasting until the end of February.

“By that point in time, our average temperatures start to increase quite significantly so while we might not see really warm weather for the rest of the winter, it is looking like it is going to be pretty hard for us to get any more bitterly cold arctic air just because we are getting so close to spring now.”

Kehler says we can never rule anything out, but typically when we have warmer air coming from the Pacific, it is unlikely that we will receive any significant snowfall.

“If we want a big snow event, usually we want a flow coming somewhat out of the arctic or even from the southwestern US that could carry up the Colorado low, but when you have the jet stream shifting off to our north, typically bigger weather systems follow it up there.”